As authorities in several countries tried to determine what caused the deadly crash of a passenger airplane in Kazakhstan, investigators and experts Thursday were focusing on the possibility that a Russian air defense system had struck the plane.
Aviation experts cast doubt on a Russian agency’s contention that the Azerbaijan Airlines jet had hit a flock of birds, saying images of the crash site show holes in the plane’s fuselage that appeared unlikely to have been caused by them.
The jet had been flying Wednesday morning from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, in Russia’s Chechnya republic, at a time when drone strikes were taking place around Grozny and Russian air defense systems were responding, according to residents and local news reports.
Two Azerbaijanis briefed on a government inquiry said Azerbaijani officials now believe a Russian Pantsir-S defense system damaged the plane. Caliber, a news outlet in Azerbaijan that is close to the government, also reported that the country’s investigators believe a Russian Pantsir system was responsible.
U.S. intelligence agencies do not have definitive information yet, but U.S. officials said there are preliminary indications that the plane was shot down by a Russian anti-aircraft system, most likely a surface-to-air missile.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov warned Thursday against making any immediate judgments about the cause, telling reporters, “The investigation is ongoing. We need to wait for its conclusions.”
The plane crashed while trying to make an emergency landing in Aktau, Kazakhstan, about 260 miles east of Grozny, on the shore of the Caspian Sea. Of the 62 passengers and five crew members on board, 38 were killed, according to Kazakhstan’s authorities.
Besides Azerbaijan and Russia, authorities in Kazakhstan said they had opened a criminal investigation into the crash. Kazakhstan’s transportation authority said in a statement Thursday that Embraer, which is based in Brazil, would also be examining the crash along with the Brazilian air force.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.